Baseball Coming to Midland
August 12, 2006
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Announcements
International Night committee
Long Range Planning committee
International Night: Bucket of Fun and auction items are still needed. Rob Clark corrected last week's Breezes by nothing that there are FOUR buckets, not two as mentioned before. There will be two "adult" buckets and two "Family" buckets in the raffle. The "adult content" bucket will contain the hard stuff and the family bucket will be filled with... well, "family" items.
Members can help fill the buckets by bringing appropriate goodies, or they simply donate cash which the committee will use for a shopping trip. Raffle tickets were passed out last week. 3,000 tickets were printed and they sell for $2 each or three for $5.
Kathy Czerwinski reminded the club Paul Harris points can be assigned to other worthy individuals. She then announced that level 10 Paul Harris Fellow Wes Timm has honored three members by assigning points to them. Bill Findley becomes a +1 fellow, Linda Heemstra and Mike Stoner become +2 fellows.
Member Leo Najar, Artistic Director of the Bijou Orchestra, brought the cast of "The Big Bang" to the meeting. They presented a song from the production which plays at the Van Buren Street Theater on August 9 and 19. The musical is about "two guys who have written a $83.5 million, 12 hour musical staging of the history of the world." The musical at the Van Buren is not quite that long as it centers on the men's attempt to raise funding by presenting pieces of their work.
LAST WEEK'S PROGRAM: Paul Barbeau, Team President and General Manager of the Midland Baseball Foundation spoke to the club about the new minor league team in Midland. Barbeau, a new Midland Rotarian, was previously with the Spokane Indians Baseball Club in Spokane, Washington. The Indians set all-time attendance records for the franchise in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and was ranked among Northwest League leaders in ticket, sponsorship and concessions revenue. Barbeau was named Northwest League Executive of the Year and in 1999.
The Michigan Baseball Foundation is a non-profit which started from discussions by various people at Dow Chemical, including Dow chairman Bill Stavropoulos. This was around the same time that discussion were going on in Bay County. The results was the foundation, which was initially funded by foundations such as The Dow Chemical Company Foundation, The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation, The Herbert H. & Grace A. Dow Foundation, The Charles J. Strosacker Foundation and Dow Corning Corporation.
The objective of the foundation is to bring baseball to Mid-Michigan. More than that, however, the foundation wants to provide family based entertainment. Unlike the typical team, which is a for-profit organization, the Midland team will use the proceeds to maintain the team but also make grants to worthy projects and groups throughout the area.
Minor League baseball has seen tremendous growth in recent years. "People love it because they can get up close and take ownership of the team", said Barbeau. "Our players are in town for the 70 home games and on the road the rest of the season. It doesn't make sense to lease an apartment so they live with host families".
Minor league teams are independently owned but each is affiliated with a major league team. The major hires the players and provides the coaching and other staff. Players are assigned to the minors and may move up or down throughout the season. "It's difficult to say how the team will do because the major gives us new players every year. Even during the year the team will change as players are moved to and from the majors."
The new Midland stadium is expected to be one of the best in the minors. By way of comparison, the beautiful new Traverse City stadium cost around $10 million. The Midland stadium is projected to cost between $27 and $28 million.
Tickets for the season go on sale August 18 at various outlets. The first game is scheduled for April 13 (a Friday), 2007.
For the full story, visit the michiganbaseballfoundation.com web site.
eClub-One: Members with internet connections are encouragedto visit eClub-One monthly for a makeup. To get makeup credit you need to fill out the makeup form on that site. Print the acknowledgement for you receive and turn it in to receive credit. Be sure to enter our club's district number (6310) on that form.
Click this link to open eClubOne in a new window: www.rotaryeclubone.org.
The Bay City Rotary Club meets at Noon each Tuesday at the Lumber Barons resturant on the West Side.
Rotary Club of Bay City Web Site
District 6310 meeting schedule
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Stephen Kent |
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